*On Sept. 23 at The Astor Hotel in Hollywood, FX rolled out its newest series, The Lowdown, with creator Sterlin Harjo and executive producer/star Ethan Hawke leading a press conference that was a salute to truth, power, and storytelling.
A follow-up to “Reservation Dogs,” and loosely inspired by Harjo’s work with “This Land Press” and his late colleague, Oklahoma historian Lee Roy Chapman, the series centers on Hawke’s character, Lee Raybon — a Tulsa “truthstorian” determined to expose the secrets of the Washberg family after black sheep Dale (Tim Blake Nelson) turns up dead in what looks like suicide.
For Hawke, the character was irresistible. “The Western is ours, the Western is full of lies, and the Western is epic and beautiful,” he told reporters. “Lee is an American male and he sees himself as a cowboy journalist … he doesn’t want to go on the internet, he wants to prove it.” The Oscar-nominated actor positioned Raybon as a kind of modern Don Quixote — flawed, stubborn, and determined to ride against corruption.
The actor also stressed how the environment grounded his performance. “Tulsa’s a character. Tulsa is my costar … it’s so easy to act well when the set and the atmosphere around you smells real.” That authenticity, he said, echoed what he experienced on Reservation Dogs — a production defined by Harjo’s community of collaborators and friends.
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For Harjo, The Lowdown carries the DNA of Chapman’s fight for truth. “He did not care about money. He cared about the truth,” Harjo recalled. “That was the spark of inspiration for this character.” Rather than a lone-wolf story, Harjo described Lee’s world as a tapestry of people who fuel his mission — from Killer Mike’s role as Cyrus to Lee’s daughter. “They’re all kind of versions of him,” Harjo explained. “I like to collect these people that, like Ethan, are artists. That’s where Lee’s inspiration comes from too.”
This approach keeps The Lowdown firmly rooted in community even as it plays like a sharp-edged noir. Just as Reservation Dogs redefined Indigenous representation on screen, The Lowdown reframes the Western and the investigative drama, using Tulsa’s landscape and legacy as both setting and character.
Pressed on how the show engages with the state of media today, Hawke didn’t mince words: “We didn’t foresee what the internet would do to journalism … what seemed like a noble idea — giving everyone a voice — had this destructive force we didn’t anticipate. The Tower of Babel, all voices all the time.”
He contrasted Raybon’s meticulous fact-checking with the chaos of today’s information ecosystem. “In the opening scene, you see in Lee a pride in being an old-school journalist. He fact checked it, line by line. That’s important now.”
Harjo added: “Journalists aren’t superheroes. They’re real people trying to tell the truth so communities can live their lives. That’s what this story is really about.”
“The stakes are simple,” Harjo said. “Do you tell the truth, or do you let power bury it?”
With a cast anchored by Hawke and Nelson, and Tulsa itself humming as a co-star, The Lowdown arrives on FX with the weight of history, the sharpness of noir, and a timely question: in an age of noise, who still fights for the truth?
The Lowdown is out now, airing Tuesdays on FX, with episodes available to stream the next day on Hulu.
Jill Munroe is a Los Angeles-bred entertainment journalist, producer, and host. Follow her socials @StilettoJill or visit JillMunroe.com. Catch her live M-F on KBLA Talk 1580 from 6PM to 7PM.
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